The disaster came suddenly. In 636 AD, at Yarmuk the Roman field army broke before the Arab tide. Syria and the Levant were lost, the empire’s old heart cut away.

But in the mountains and plains of Anatolia, something ancient refused to die...

A thread 🧵 Driven from the East, the Romans regrouped.

Armies once roaming from Egypt to Armenia dug in, settled, adapted. Soldiers became farmers, camps became provinces, generals became governors.

From this slow change, the themata - the new regional armies - were born. /1

October 18, 1081; near Dyrrhachium.

The young emperor Alexios Komnenos flees for his life.

Behind him, the Norman knights of Robert Guiscard cut through the last remnants of the Roman army. The Empire is in crisis.

Yet, in the end, Byzantium will prevail.

A thread 🧵 To understand how it came to this, that the emperor has to flee the battlefield...

...we must return a decade earlier - to Manzikert.

In 1071, emperor Romanos IV Diogenes faced the Seljuks. Assured in his victory, he reject Alp Arslan's peace offer..

Instead of triumph... /1

Everyone knows 1066 ended Saxon England.
Few remember what came after.

Because not all of Harold’s men died at Hastings. Many sailed south, toward the one realm where warriors like them still had a place

To Byzantium

To the Emperor's court in Constantinople

A thread🧵 The proud warriors of Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king of England, ended in the realm known to its people as “Basileia Rhōmaiōn” - THE Roman Empire.”

Here, those exiles found new masters, new purpose, and in time, a new identity. /1

It’s Sunday in Constantinople, ca. 950 AD.

The bells of Hagia Sophia echo across the Golden Horn, blending with the cries of gulls and merchants on the Mese. More than half a million souls live here - the largest city in Europe, heart of the Christian Roman Empire.

A thread🧵 From each of the 14 districts pious citizens move toward the Great Church.

Senators and bureaucrats in their silk-bordered robes, monks in wool, sailors from the harbors, and palace guards, tread marble streets lined with porticoes and statues older than the Empire itself. /1

Is there any person in history as influential as Alexander the Great?

In barely a decade, he carved a vast empire from Greece to India.

But his legacy began the moment his empire collapsed, ushering in the Hellenistic Age, the foundation of our world.

A thread🧵 As a commander, Alexander became the model for all future generals.

His campaigns were studied by Caesar, imitated by Napoleon, analyzed by Patton. Speed, daring, and vision, as well as tactical acumen.

Every great general has marched in his footsteps. /1

Constantinople, 717 AD.

Dawn breaks over the City of Constantine. From the sea walls, Romans watch in silence as almost 2,000 Umayyad ships choke the Bosphorus.

The city faces ruin. Yet hidden aboard the imperial fleet lies a terrible secret - the Greek Fire.

A thread🧵 The imperial dromons surge forward. Bronze siphons thunder, unleashing torrents of liquid flame.

Fire leaps across the water, but it does not vanish. Instead, it burns wood and flesh. The Arab fleet erupts in chaos. Constantinople is saved... /1

Rome didn’t fall in 476.
It moved east—to Constantinople.
Fifty years later, it came back.

In the north, it became the Exarchate of Ravenna, and it endured till 751 AD.

In the south, it held on for three more centuries...

This is the story of the exarchs.

A thread 🧵 In 568, the Lombards invaded Italy. They took Milan in 569, and then Pavia. The imperial navy could protect coastal cities but do little while the Lombards pushed south

The Gothic War had ended barely a decade earlier.
Italy was shattered. The Empire had no legions to spare.../1

In 394 AD, a Roman rhetor was branded a “barbarian.” Not for his birth—but for backing the wrong emperor.
His name was Eugenius. He spoke Latin, dressed Roman, worshipped like any citizen.
But he lost.

So—what did it mean to be Roman?

A thread 🧵 So — Was there a Roman national identity?

Not in the modern ethnic or racial sense. But over 1,000+ years, the Romans forged a powerful and complex identity rooted in law, behavior, and loyalty—not blood. /1

A Slavic rebel. Crowned in Arab-held Antioch. Backed by the navy, the poor, and even the caliph.

In 821, Thomas the Slav rose up to take Constantinople. His siege nearly succeeded.

This wasn’t fiction. It was Game of Thrones—but real. And Byzantium bled.

A thread 🧵 Thomas was no outsider. Born in Pontus, trained in the imperial military, he’d served under Leo V. But when Leo was assassinated, Thomas broke ranks.

He claimed to be Leo returned—or his avenger. And in Arab-held Antioch, he was crowned emperor by an iconophile patriarch. /1

#OTD, in 451 AD, in the vicinity of a town nowadays known as Troyes, the Battle of Catalaunian plains took place. The Roman-led coalition, under Aetius, defeated Attila and his army.

Aetius won the battle, but he could not save the Western Roman Empire; nor himself

A thread🧵 Flavius Aetius was born around 390 AD in the Roman frontier town of Durostorum, now Silistra, on the Bulgarian side of the Danube.

Aetius’ father, Gaudentius, was a high-ranking officer under emperor Honorius. Almost nothing is known of Aetius’ youth... /1

In 48 BC, Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria. Standing before the sarcophagus, deeply moved Caesar paid his respects to the great conqueror.

Here lay a man who had conquered the world by thirty. Caesar wept - and began dreaming.

Of a grand Parthian campaign.

A thread 🧵 The Parthians were no mere kingdom. Only few years before Caesar visit to the Alexander's tomb, the Parthians humbled Rome at Carrhae, annihilated legions, and captured revered eagles.

For Caesar, the wound was political and personal. He wanted justice - and glory eternal. /1

“The City is fallen and I am still alive.”

#OTD, in 1453, Constantinople is about to fall. The empire of Augustus and Constantine, of Justinian and Heraclius, is counting the last hours.

This is how the last Romans made their final stand.

Fall of Constantinople. A thread🧵 By 1453 AD, the “Roman Empire” was just a name.

The emperor ruled only Constantinople and scraps in the Peloponnese. Inside the city lived fewer than 50,000 people - many of them refugees.

But they still called themselves Romans. And they prayed for a miracle. /1

Let’s talk about the emperor who inherited Rome’s last great reconquest—and watched it all start to fall apart. Meet Justin II, nephew of Justinian the Great.

His reign (565–578 AD) is where the cracks began to show. Big time. 🧵 Justin II took the throne in 565, just as his uncle Justinian died. He inherited an empire that looked glorious on paper—Italy, North Africa, Spain, the East… Rome restored!

But in reality? It was overextended, broke, and bleeding. /1

By the mid 9th century, the Byzantine empire was slowly recovering from traumas of the Arab invasion.

Emperor Theophilos, young and ambitious warrior conducted several succesful offensives.

But he had much bolder plan

Nothing less than reuniting East and West

A thread 🧵
Theophilos was aware that his forces could not decisively defeat the Abbasid Caliphate, and restore the eastern provinces.

But if the Romans and Carolingian Franks unite their forces, they could prevail. And if they reunite the Empire...

Enters Thekla, emperor's daughter /1

So you wanna be a Varangian?

The bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor, ready to die for his master, but also spend hours of boredom carving graffiti during a solemn mass in Hagia Sophia?

It is an arduous and dangerous work, but it also brings wealth and fame.

A thread 🧵 Joining the Varangian Guard meant pledging loyalty to the Emperor of the #Romans - a rare honour for a foreigner, especially one from the north.

To be a Varangian, you must be from the North, far beyond the imperial territory. Depending on the time, your ethnicity mattered. /1

The course of history is not decided by one single event, but pivotal moments do happen, and they have a far-reaching impact

One such event is the Battle of Actium, where Octavian's naval forces defeated the combined fleet of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, #OTD, in 31 BC

A thread🧵 The Battle of Actium was the culmination of a decade-long rivalry between two most powerful men in Late Republican Rome:

Octavian, Julius Caesar's adoptive son, and Mark Antony, Caesar's ally and favorite general

The two initially worked together to avenge Caesar's murder... /1

On August 2, 216 BC, the largest Roman army ever assembled gathered near the ancient town of Cannae. Rome was determined to teach the Punic upstart a lesson.

Instead, at Cannae, #Hannibal Barca painted the battlefield red with Roman blood.

A thread🧵 By the early second century BC, Roman expansion in the Western Mediterranean encountered an obstacle - the maritime power of #Carthage. Romans, however, managed not only to build the fleet (in a remarkably short time).

They also defeated Carthage, taking control of the seas. /1

He was the Roman emperor who killed his brother. He spent more time in a military camp than in the capital. And he died en route to Persia, where he planned to gain glory for Rome and himself.

He was Caracalla. But not one from #Gladiator2. He was a soldier-emperor.

A thread🧵

Caracalla was one of the two sons of Septimius Severus, a highly competent Roman emperor, who emerged as the winner of the bloody civil war following Commodus’ death

“Caracalla” was a nickname derived from the Gallic hooded tunic that he habitually wore and made fashionable. /1

So you want to be a Roman legionary? A highly disciplined, trained, and organized member of the famed Roman legion. One of the most renowned ancient militaries.

It is an arduous path, carrying many dangers, but also great benefits. So let's enroll, shall we?

A thread🧵 Before joining the legion, the recruit underwent a rigorous, hard-core training. While the Roman legion was a massive unit - comprising around 5,000 men, the legion was as strong as its smallest part - a legionary. /1

If you visit the Venetian Arsenal, you can see an imposing statue of a lion.

The lion, made of white marble, stands some 3 m high. But this statue has a fascinating history and an even more fascinating secret

To start with, The Lion of Piraeus comes from Greece...

A thread 🧵 The ancient Lion of Piraeus, was originally sculpted ca. 360 BC. It was located in the Athens port city of Piraeus, until 1687, when it was brought to Venice.

However, if you look carefully, you can see another layer, giving insight into always wonderful #Byzantine Empire /1

#OTD In 1204, Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire, fell to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade.

The Empire never recovered from such a blow.

But how did it come to this? What led to this unspeakable betrayal.

A thread 🧵 Following the chain of disasters at the end of the 11th century, the emperors of the Komnenian dynasty managed to restore the #RomanEmpire fortunes. It was not an easy task. To expel the Seljuks from Anatolia, emperor Alexios I had to ask for help from the West... /1